About Us

Launched in 2021 by the University of Hildesheim, Migration Lab Germany is a project that seeks to open up a space for thought, exploration and mutual encounter. Our focus is on the question of how migration, flight and related topics are taught and learned.

Migration Lab Germany connects individuals, groups and institutions active in the spheres of education, civil society and culture, including museums, schools, theatres, migrant organizations, civil society initiatives, memorial sites and theaters. Our objective is to explore the topic of migration with children, young people and adults in a variety of educational and artistic ways.

Our research team accompanies model projects, offers professional development seminars and supports interdisciplinary networking. With our migration-lab.net digital media archive, we present best practice models and educational media that address the topic of migration in new and innovative ways. In the future, our goal is to extend our network of project partners to the national and international sphere.

The project was initiated by the Center for Educational Integration at the University of Hildesheim.

Our Team

Viola B. Georgi

Project Director / Director of the ZBI

E-Mail: georgiv@uni-hildesheim.de

Thinking and reflecting about issues connected to migration in education and culture not only provides us with basic knowledge for living in a global world; it also helps us develop cross-border empathy and solidarity.

Prof. Dr. Viola B. Georgi holds the chair for Diversity Education at the University of Hildesheim in Germany. She is the founding director of the Center for Diversity, Democracy and Inclusion in Education at the University of Hildesheim. Her research is concerned with migration studies in Germany, Europe and North America. Georgi has extensive international research and teaching experience in the area of migration and diversity studies, among others at the University of Haifa (Israel), Sabanci University (Turkey), York University (Toronto, Canada), Uppsala University (Sweden), Cape Coast University (Ghana) and UCLA (USA). Her research and publications focus on global education, human rights education, diversity studies, citizenship education, memory studies, educational media and textbook analysis as well as intercultural school development and teacher education. She is a member of number of research commissions and boards and serves as an advisor in various government and civil-society initiatives within the field of migration and education as well as in migration policymaking in Germany (i.e. the German Council of Migration and the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration). Recently she was appointed to the Germany’s Expert Council on Integration and Migration.

Nurten Karakaş

Scientific Coordinator

E-Mail: karakas@uni-hildesheim.de

Migration is often intertwined with structures of social inequality. The Migration Lab Germany project aims to reduce these inequalities.

Nurten Karakas holds a degree in education and has taught on topics such as migration and education/educational inequality, diversity education and the critique of racism. She is the scientific coordinator of the Migration Lab Germany project and is responsible for monitoring the participating organizations and projects as well as the entire project management.

Emma Rehr

Project & Web Development

E-Mail: rehr@uni-hildesheim.de

Emma Rehr is a migration educator (M.A.) and soon-to-be supervisor/coach (DGSv*). Her work focuses on the professionalization of actors and organizations operating in Germany’s “migration society.” As a lecturer, educational consultant, trainer and (online) consultant, Emma Rehr helps to shape interfaces between science and practice, between creativity and (racism) critique, and between culture and education.

Emma Rehr explores the issue of what professionals and organizations in education and culture need to do in order to remain capable of acting in a society shaped by migration discourses. How can power-critical attitudes be implemented in pedagogical and artistic practice? How can (creative) interventions develop (racism-) critical potential? How can resistance be carried out and structures disrupted?

In the Migration Lab Germany project, Emma Rehr is mainly responsible for the development of the digital media archive. In addition, she accompanies and advises on all processes involved in the project's activities.

Nadin Tettschlag

Project Management

E-Mail: tettschl@uni-hildesheim.de

Nadin Tettschlag associates the topic of "migration" with the need to work for an open society that is critical of power and in which all voices are heard. She is a social pedagogue and social scientist and coordinates the Center for Diversity, Democracy and Inclusion in Education at the University of Hildesheim. As a border crosser between research, science transfer and management, her focus is on diversity education, educational media, project and organizational development. She accompanies all processes in the Migration Lab.

Agata Wiezorek

Editor & Web Development

E-Mail: wozniesi@uni-hildesheim.de

After graduating from high school, Agata Wiezorek trained as a speech therapist and worked with a focus on children’s language, multilingualism and mutism. In the course of her professional practice, she became aware of the institutional disadvantages of children, at which point she started a bachelor's degree in special education and followed it up with the master's degree in educational science. Throughout her academic career, she has focused on diversity education and the representation of children in media. Since November 2017, she has been working on her PhD under Prof. Viola B. Georgi, investigating racializing practices of representation and differentiation in educational media of early childhood, including their historical transformations and continuities, drawing on the motif ‘Children of the World.’ She is currently active as a research assistant in the projects ‘Stories in Motion’ and ‘Migration Lab Germany’. Privately, Agata Wiezorek is passionate about dance and pop culture with a preference for diversity in games, literature, comics, board games and children's media.

Her role at Migration Lab Germany is editorial work. She develops criteria for the selection of media in order to make the polyphony of Germany’s migration society visible and audible in the archive.

Kimberly Daubert

Editor

E-Mail: daubert@uni-hildesheim.de

Kimberly Daubert is a student of elementary school teaching (German and Art) as well as a master of German as a second and foreign language. Her thematic focus includes multilingualism research and games in the classroom. Currently, she is working on her master's thesis on language(s) in educational spaces.  

At Migration Lab Germany, Kimberly Daubert is a student assistant mainly working on website and media tasks.

Our partners in the U.S.

Re-Imagining Migration (RIM) is a U.S. non-profit organization that addresses the issue of migration with the aim of transferring relevant research into various fields of action in education and culture (schools, museums, etc.). In order to optimize this transfer, there is close interdisciplinary cooperation with relevant practitioners, institutions and networks, as well as scientific support from the Faculty of Education at Harvard University in Cambridge, USA.

Learn more about RIM: https://reimaginingmigration.org